


The Secret Manifesto by Michelle Jones

by Winterblush



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: At least for this timeline, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, High School, Maybe - Freeform, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Romance, Slow Burn, Spider-Man: Homecoming Spoilers, Tony Stark is alive, and after homecoming, at least not yet, i think??, non-canon, since this is before endgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 02:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20400514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterblush/pseuds/Winterblush
Summary: Keeping somebody else's secret is a fucking chore. Especially if that somebody is an idiot. And if that idiot doesn't even know she's keeping his secret.Seriously, she should be getting paid for this.





	The Secret Manifesto by Michelle Jones

**Author's Note:**

> Hi first fic here! I wrote this right after watching Homecoming (which I LOVED) but never really posted it because I don't really post - and also I'm not a writer, i'm just really obsessed with this version of spiderman. (FAR FROM HOME IS AAAAHHH)
> 
> But I saw this again while looking through my files and after the whole Disney and Sony fiasco, I figured what more can i lose. So here's my first fic. Hope you guys enjoy!

**Spiderling’s Cluster Logbook**

_As compiled and observed by Tony Stark_

**(page 2 of 6)**

**Subject Name:** Michelle Jones

**Age:** 15/16 years old

**Education:** Midtown High School

**Relationship to the Spiderling:** _<strike>Schoolmates</strike> <strike>Decathlon Groupmates</strike>_ Lunch buddies? Friends?? Very vague. Must do more research.

**Special Abilities:** Scaring people. But in a normal human way. Maybe. Must do more research.

**Protection** **Level**: 1 - must determine closeness first with Spiderling

* * *

Michelle Jones knows when people are keeping something. Being a loner surprisingly gives a person a lot of time to observe other people. She practically lives in a separate world than these dufus-es around her. To everyone in Midtown Science and Technology High School, she’s nothing but a snarky girl who doesn’t have a care in the world. Well, they’re not exactly wrong. Except for one thing, She’s an _observant_ snarky girl who doesn’t have a care in the world. And she watches her surroundings in a way that would surely make her dad proud. Maybe. Probably. If he’s ever around. Who cares.

The thing is, Michelle’s not even trying to find out anything about Peter Parker. For a school for geniuses, her school is shockingly very boring. So boring, that she decided during fourth grade to make a little mind game of absorbing little facts about the people in her school. Not for blackmail, of course. Maybe. At least she hasn’t used it for such. Just a little something to make this - socially constructed institution that forces people below a socially constructed maturity age to interact with each other and base their self-worth with socially constructed grading systems - more bearable.

That why she knows how Mr. Harrington’s ginger cat, whom he still keeps as his phone wallpaper, died last winter, the weekend before he came to the decathlon meeting and started quizzing them about the meaning and importance of cats in different cultures around the world (she aced the Egyptian ones). That Flash started turning down after-practice decathlon hangouts not because “_I don’t want to be seen with people who can’t even afford to own two different cashmere sweaters”_ but because his parents are using his allowance to pay for the car he wrecked. That _Spiderman_ wrecked.

Observing for her comes naturally. Her brain just naturally connects things that she notices, like how Mr. Harrington started getting teary-eyed and all sad whenever he looks at his wallpaper that winter, and how Flash stopped waving around his money at other people’s faces like how he’s known to do after the car fiasco.

So really, she didn’t mean to find out that the dork in her Decathlon team swings around the neighborhood in a red and black onesie as Spiderman. It was just her mind’s natural reaction to signal her that something was wrong when an awkward, shy Peter Parker with glasses missed classes for two days after their class’s tour in the Oscorp headquarters, and came back to school almost a head taller, still awkward but with a hundred percent more confidence, and biceps that she was pretty sure couldn’t be formed within two days. He tried pulling off what Michelle was also sure were fake glasses for a whole week before he just gave up and told people that he was switching to contacts.

“Shut. Up. They really took you to the _Avengers_ _headquarters_?” Ned Leeds whispered to his best friend, practically shaking on his seat. At least Michelle was pretty sure he thought he was whispering. She was on the other end of the table and she could still hear it. Although lucky for them, the other tables seem to remain oblivious to the classified talk happening right now.

“Yeah, dude. It was _crazy_. He told me I could live there,” Parker paused, looking around to see if anyone’s listening, MJ quickly shifted her eyes back on her book and schooled a face of nonchalance. He didn’t seem to have caught her because he continued in a low disbelieving whisper, ”_as an Avenger_.”

“_No freaking way.” _Ned’s response sounds out of breath.

Really, if MJ - for some reason - was so dumb not to have connected Parker’s two-day miraculous growth spurt with the emergence of the red and blue onesie guy and the Washington incident - not counting prom because that was still hazy to her, though she was pretty sure it should be included - their lunch talks would have automatically clued her in.

Boys were such _idiots_.

“But I…I declined it.” Michelle’s knee-jerk reaction was to look up, but she thankfully has enough self-control to remain fixated on her book. There was something…peaceful about Parker’s statement that didn’t quite make sense with her.

Silence at the other end of the table. She desperately wanted to see Ned’s reaction, if only to make fun of him, but she knew it wouldn’t do well for them to know she could hear them.

“Um…Ned? Are you-”

“_What?_ You _declined _his offer to _be an Avenger_”

“Well, yeah.

“_Why? _Isn’t that what you wanted? To be a full-time superhero?”

“It _was._ But, I realized he was right - Mr. Stark, I mean. I’m…I’m not yet ready. There’s still so much for me to learn, you know. It was presumptuous of me to think I could handle being Spiderman all the time. And I-I don’t know. I don’t think I _want_ to be. I’m not just Spiderman, I’m also Peter Parker and I _want_ to be Peter Parker.” A pause. “Mr. Stark told me once that if I think I’m nothing without my suit then I don’t deserve it. I think he’s right, y’know. I should be somebody who deserves that suit. I should work hard to deserve that suit.”

Michelle’s eyebrows raised behind her book.

“Well,” Ned sounds impressed and proud at the same time. “Okay then. You know I’ll support you and whatever, Peter. I’m the man in the chair, afterall.”

“Thanks, Ne-“

“_But_, I just have to say, y’know. Just for the record. It would have been totally _sick_ if you became an Avenger. I mean, I’ll probably still be the man in the chair, but I bet it would be an upgraded chair. With cooler tech that I didn’t just piece in my room. Can you imagine? Maybe they would’ve let me come with you - which would be _so cool_, by the way. Maybe I could’ve met Tony Stark. Or maybe somebody cooler like - I don’t know, the Hulk, Thor or- oh my God what if I got to meet _Black Widow_. _I could’ve met Black Widow. Peter why did you turn it down?_” Ned started whining.

Michelle heard Parker’s laugh. “Oh, I’m pretty sure Mr. Stark was just testing me. I honestly don’t think he was really offering me space in the Avengers headquarters and a press conference to reveal my secret identity.”

“_He was going to reveal your secret identity?!_”

“Shh! Keep it down, Ned. And I told you, I don’t think he was really planning to do-”

“_Oh my God. _Do you know what that means? We could’ve been part of the cool crowd now!”

“Ned, we’re nerds. We can’t be cool by definition alone.”

“Peter, the definition of cool will redefine itself if people find out that you’re Spid-”

Michelle slammed her book down at the table with a bang and the boys both jumped in fright at the sound, effectively cutting off their conversation. A conversation that was becoming progressively loud. Good thing she brought a hardbound today.

“Um, MJ? Are you okay?” Peter curiously asked. She turned her head to give him a withering glare.

“Children are being forced into labor, Parker. The whole world is not okay.” She deadpanned. Parker blinked in stunned confusion. She almost broke out in snickers at his stupid expression. She kept her cool, though. It’s her reputation at risk here.

“So no, I’m definitely not okay.”

She packed her bag and walked out of the cafeteria, but not before taking one last look (and flashing one last middle finger) at the stunned - if not slightly scared - expressions of her table-mates.

God, scaring idiots is really the only great thing about high school.


End file.
